Spain: Is Spain fueling the BDS war against Israel?

Spain's center-right
government under Mariano Rajoy continues to pursue policies that are
antagonistic towards Israel — policies that are virtually unchanged from
the government of former Socialist Prime Minister of José Luis
Rodríguez Zapatero — policies that largely coincide with the objectives
of the BDS movement.

Although Spain's Foreign Minister has repeatedly said that the
government does not support a boycott against Israel, under his watch
the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID),
the Foreign Ministry's primary aid-giving agency, has continued to
subsidize organizations that work to delegitimize Israel.

Between 2009 and 2011, the Zapatero government funneled more than
€15 million of Spanish taxpayer funds to Palestinian and Spanish
non-governmental organizations that are among the leaders in campaigns
aimed at delegitimizing Israel via BDS, lawfare and other forms of
demonization, according to a comprehensive analysis published by the
Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor.

The Rajoy government continues to fund NGOs that are involved in anti-Israel activities.

According to the Official Gazette of the Spanish State, for
example, NOVA-Centre per la Innovació Social, a Barcelona-based NGO with
a history of anti-Israel activism, is slated to receive more than
€200,000 in 2015... AECID awarded €200,000 in 2014 to the Catalan
Association for Peace, a group that has co-organized a three-year
project to "raise awareness" for the BDS movement against Israel.

"The EU calls our ambassadors in because of the construction of a
few houses? When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors about
incitement that calls for Israel's destruction?... They don't tell the
Palestinians that they have to make their peace with a nation-state for
the Jewish people. They just give the Palestinians a nation-state." —
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Spanish BDS activists continue their efforts to
prevent Israeli artists from performing at Spanish music festivals, and
vice versa.